{"id":105440,"date":"2017-10-24T07:40:46","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T11:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/?p=105440"},"modified":"2017-10-24T07:45:56","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T11:45:56","slug":"a-new-big-5-has-just-cornered-the-quebec-gasoline-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/a-new-big-5-has-just-cornered-the-quebec-gasoline-market\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Big 5 Has Just Cornered The Quebec Gasoline Market"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What do <a href=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/chain-profiles\/sobeys-quebec\/\">Sobeys Quebec<\/a> (Shell), <a href=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/chain-profiles\/couche-tard\/\">Couche-Tard<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/chain-profiles\/suncor-energy\/\">Suncor Energy<\/a> (Petro-Canada), <a href=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/chain-profiles\/harnois-groupe-petrolier\/\">Harnois<\/a> (Esso) and <a href=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/chain-profiles\/parkland-fuel-corporation\/\">Parkland<\/a>\u00a0(Ultramar) have in common?<\/p>\n<p>According to the R\u00e9gie de l&#8217;\u00c9nergie (which does not go so far as to name them but their identity is obvious), these five companies control three-quarters of the gasoline market in Quebec, a concentration that has been intensifying in Quebec over the past decade.<\/p>\n<p>This is one of the conclusions that emerges from the most recent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.regie-energie.qc.ca\/documents\/autres\/RecensementEssenceries2016_juin2017.pdf\">Survey of Quebec Active Gas Stations (June 2017)<\/a>, a study (available in French only) that is published only once every three years with lots of insightful data on the Quebec gasoline market.<\/p>\n<p>Thus we learn that the market share of the five most active companies in the retail and gasoline distribution has increased from two-thirds (68%) to three-quarters (72%), but also that there has been a rotation of these Big Five. In other words, they are not the same five companies anymore!<\/p>\n<p>In fact, while large oil companies like Shell, Imperial Oil and Ultramar used to be vertically integrated (from extraction to refining to retail), most of them left the retail sector except Petro-Canada (Suncor), leaving some room for newcomers.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_105437\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-105437\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-105439 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/reseauselect.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"445\" srcset=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/reseauselect.jpg 800w, https:\/\/depquebec.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/reseauselect-600x334.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-105437\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Previously operated by multinational Shell, the Select gas station network was sold in 2011 to Sobeys Quebec, which has just announced its conversion to its Boni-Soir and Voisin banners. Shell, however, continues to be the flagship gas brand of the integrated retailer that relies heavily on the ready-to-eat category to boost sales in its smaller surfaces. The photo above shows one of the 95 Shell Select gas stations in Quebec, located in Beloeil.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The current members of the Big Five are therefore in all likelihood the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/chain-profiles\/couche-tard\/\">Alimentation Couche-Tard<\/a> with about 500 gas stations (62 with its brand and the rest with other major brands);<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/chain-profiles\/sobeys-quebec\/\">Sobeys Quebec<\/a> with approximately 325 gas stations (Shell for most but also other gas brands) plus the independents it supplies;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/chain-profiles\/parkland-fuel-corporation\/\">Parkland<\/a> with about 300 gas stations (Esso and Ultramar), half corporate and half dealer operated;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/chain-profiles\/suncor-energy\/\">Suncor Energy<\/a> with its 170 Super Relais corporate gas stations and its Petro-Canada gas brand used by more than 200 independents;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/chain-profiles\/harnois-groupe-petrolier\/\">Harnois Groupe p\u00e9trolier<\/a> with 79 corporate gas stations and depanneurs and supplying 200 independent ones with its many brands (Esso, Petro-T, Harnois, etc.).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>According to the report, these five companies control or supply 1,754 of the 2,876 gas stations in Quebec (61% of the total) and sell 6.3 billion liters of the 8.8 billion sold each year, or 72% of the total volume.<\/p>\n<p>Other information and insights from this report are of interest.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Quebec still has a lot of low volume gas stations. The majority of gas stations, or 60.6% of them, sell less than 3 M liters of fuel per year. This proportion increases to 93.5% for sales volumes of less than 7 ML per year. &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.regie-energie.qc.ca\/documents\/autres\/RecensementEssenceries2016_juin2017.pdf\">R\u00e9gie de l&#8217;Energie<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Indeed, most gas stations are considered to be in the low volume category. High volume gas stations, with 7 M liters or more, are only 6.5% of the total, but their proportion is increasing.<\/p>\n<p>As for the number of gas stations, it has changed very little since the last report: Quebec has lost only 19 gas stations since 2013, or 0.7% of the network.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest change of the last few years is the sale of Esso&#8217;s March\u00e9 Express gas stations as well as that of CST Brands D\u00e9panneur du Coin to Couche-Tard and Parkland and, above all, the arrival of Alberta&#8217;s Parkland on the Quebec retail market.<\/p>\n<p>We will soon see how all these changes will affect the market dynamics but with so many low-volume gas stations, the future seems easy to predict.<\/p>\n<p>It is to be expected that the consolidation trend will continue, resulting in fewer gas stations, but with each more volume.<\/p>\n<p>Because it is in the intrinsic nature of a free market to seek an optimal balance between a profitable offer and a demand that, in addition, is highly mobile!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What do Sobeys Quebec (Shell), Couche-Tard, Suncor Energy (Petro-Canada), Harnois (Esso) and Parkland\u00a0(Ultramar) have in common? According to the R\u00e9gie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":105448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1739,223,234],"tags":[265,268,1165,947,1166,1167,1168,1169],"class_list":["post-105440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gas-2","category-newsdep","category-zoom-dep","tag-couche-tard-en","tag-gas","tag-harnois-groupe-petrolier-en","tag-parkland-en","tag-recensement-en","tag-sobeys-quebec-en","tag-suncor-en","tag-survey"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/thebigfive3.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}